On April 7, 2020, Bee Vectoring Technologies International INC announced that in Summer 2020, it will begin conducting crop trials in Morocco. The Canadian company sited Morocco’s excellent climate as a distinct agricultural advantage to grow berries during 10 months of the year.
Among the most impressive of Morocco’s berry production is the strawberry. Morocco has 26,000 hectares of greenhouse production and an estimated 3,000 ha strawberries. Raspberries and blueberries, amassing 2,000 ha each, are also producing impressive harvests. Both have tripled in production over the past five years. According to Ashish Malik, CEO of Bee Vectoring Technologies, these numbers and other assessments of Morocco’s agricultural capacity caught the attention of his company. “Approximately 40% of Morocco’s workforce is employed in the agriculture industry and it contributes to around 16% of the national GDP,” said Malik. He also added that the substantial exports to the EU, the US east coast, Russia, and Africa make Morocco “a significant Market opportunity with great expectations.”
BVT has not yet revealed the partners it plans to collaborate with however said they are currently speaking with a Moroccan partner who may roll out four different crops. These include strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and tomatoes. The large scale demonstrations planned for the summer will be BVT’s first step to commercialization in Morocco. The kingdom was also chosen because it places high attention on the sustainable agriculture movement, something at the heart of BVT’s technology. The company’s natural precision agriculture system replaces chemical and wasteful sprays by delivering biological pesticide alternatives to crops using commercially grown bees.
“These demonstrations represent an opportunity for the Moroccan agricultural industry and growers, to see first-hand how well the BVT precision agriculture system works in controlling crop disease and improving yields in their local environment,” stated Mr. Malik. BVT is an agriculture technology company and market disruptor with a significant global market opportunity in the $240 billion crop protection and fertilizer market.